The Homeland Security Department demoted a senior career employee who confidentially complained to the inspector general that political appointees were improperly interfering with requests for federal records by journalists and watchdog groups.

Newly released U.S. records and declarations by a government whistle-blower appear to support allegations that government agents allowed hundreds of firearms to be smuggled across the Arizona border into the hands of Mexican drug cartels.

The filibuster lives on. The Senate voted overwhelmingly late Thursday to reject efforts to change its rules to restrict the blockades that have sewn gridlock and discord in recent years on Capitol Hill.

A year after their worst declines since the Great Depression, college endowment earnings gained sharply last year, though not enough to make up for ground lost during the recent recession, a study out Thursday shows.

A senator's high-profile investigation of spending by televangelists wrapped up after more than three years Thursday with no penalties for the pastors who refused to cooperate and no definitive findings of wrongdoing.